In the first match for Kolkata Knight Riders, Mumbai Indians came into the match after facing defeat in their opening match against their arch-rivals Chennai Super Kings in IPL 2020. A match which was expected to be a close one, in the end, turned out to be a comfortable win for Mumbai Indians by 49 runs. This took them to the top of the table early in the tournament.
In this cricket analysis, we will analyse the match statistically to have a look at the things that went wrong for Kolkata Knight riders while the moments that led Mumbai Indians to victory.
Kolkata decided to bowl first after winning the toss. It was not much of surprise due to the dew which can come into play and also considering that they won 71% of their matches when chasing since IPL 2016. Mumbai were once again put into bat first – the same situation as the previous match.
The Knight Riders started the bowling nicely. Sandeep Warrier, the young pace bowler, bowled a decent first over conceding just eight in his first over, while at the other end Shivam Mavi bowled a maiden wicket soviet in the second over of the match, getting the big fish Quinton De Kock out. The score was 8-1 after two overs for Mumbai Indians
Performance for both teams during different phases of the game
First Innings
The images above shows the runs scored and wickets lost by both teams during different phases of the game, and it’s the powerplay where the major difference of runs is: MI scored 26 more runs in the powerplay then KKR. Although KKR gained some momentum after the first strategic time out it only lasted till 13th over. Kuldeep Yadav went for 17 in his last over as his struggle with the ball in IPL continued, finishing 39 of his four overs. He was only able to take four wickets in his last season of the IPL averaging 71.50.
The middle overs woe for KKR continued. In the last season, they conceded runs at more than 8.5 over and were able to take wickets only once in six overs. The major reason for this is the lack of form for Kuldeep which they heavily rely on in middle overs. Only when Mumbai looked to set to score more than 200, tidy overs from Sunil Narine and Andre Russell helped KKR to restrict MI under 200.
Second Innings
Trent Boult started brilliantly with a maiden for MI while James Pattinson went for eight in his first over. Both the teams had a similar score after two overs with MI losing a wicket. But unlike MI, KKR openers were not able to accelerate and lost their wickets inside first six overs. KKR only managed 33 in their first six overs. This resulted into the pressure for the dynamic middle order of Nitish Rana, Dinesh Karthik, Eoin Morgan and Andre Russell. Just like KKR, MI also deployed the tactic of bowling short balls and it worked.
Nitish Rana and Dinesh Karthik tried to rebuild the innings but it meant the run rate kept on becoming higher. After 10 overs KKR were 71/2 with required run rate climbing up to 12.5. The pressure got to them and both of them felt in two consecutive overs. It meant two new players at the crease with the run-rate of more than 14 in last eight overs. Further, Jasprit Bumrah had only conceded three runs in his first two overs and had two overs left. Burmah took both the dangerous KKR players out of the equation in the 16th over of the match. Although Pat Cummins showed his hitting skills with the bat scoring four sixes of Bumrah’s last over but it was little too late for Kolkata Knight Riders.
Batting Impact Performance
Rohit-Surya Partnership for MI
It was Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav’s 90-run partnership that got the Indians‘ innings running nicely. After a quiet first two overs, they scored 51 in remaining four overs of the powerplay setting up the momentum for the innings. It was Yadav who took the attack initially, hammering Warrier for four fours in the third over of the game. As a result, Cummins – the most expensive player in this years auction – was brought into the attack by Karthik to slow down the flow of runs. Unfortunately, there was not much change in fortunes. Cummins banged in a few short and Sharma brought his favourite shot pull in the equation, which resulted in a 15-run first over for the Australian – and this was the over where Rohit gained momentum.
Narine was brought for the last over of the powerplay, but there was not much change in the result for KKR as he went for 13 runs. They also kept going at a good pace in the middle overs but the partnership of 90 runs ended in the 11th over. Suryakumar Yadav got run out while taking a second run, finishing sixth 47 of 28 balls which included 6 fours and one six. Rohit continued to hold the innings together until the 18th over, scoring 80 off just 54 balls which included six huge sixes and three fours.
The reason Suryakumar Yadav had such a high impact compared to Rohit Sharma is because it takes into consideration the strike-rate and the impact of it on changing the momentum of the game. Although it wouldn’t be wrong to say Rohit Sharma slowed it down in the middle, as the idea was to be there until the end and this was successful and took Mumbai to a very competitive score.
Karthik – KKR’s captain – had a negative impact on the match while batting. He tried to rebuild the innings but was not able to change the momentum and take it deep losing his wicket at a crucial juncture of the game. It was only Cummins who had a positive impact on KKR in terms of batting
Bowling Impact performance
It can be seen here how the impact index for both Bumrah and Boult is high, and they had the highest index in terms of bowling for MI. Although Bumrah might have conceded more runs than Boult, it was just the last over of Bumrah which went for 27 and this did not have a major impact on the match. As a result, his impact index is way higher than Boult’s.
For KKR it was Narine with the highest impact index rating for his disciplined bowling when every other bowler was being taken apart by MI. The other player who had a very good impact was the youngster Shivam Mavi with an impact index rating of 61.04
